Ohmeohmy....

I had a virus. YES! I had a virus. I just finished the system restore, and I'm missing stuff, but that's OK because I no longer have crap popups and misdirects and crap downloading itself like it's from Windows.

What pisses me off the most?
You know it was created by some script-kiddie in Mommy's basement pickin' his nose and waiting for the day when the world will REALLY recognize his genius... Because, you know, he considers himself to be an oldfag on whatever-chan he happens to gleefully post on.
Am I bitter? Yes. Yes, I am.
I just spent 3 fucking days copying my files to whatever flash drive I could find that would work to cart said files to Sic-un's computer to burn to CD. I ended up using my camera-as-flash-drive with its 256 mb card and Richard's old 128 mb card...at least before I ran out of batteries for the camera (and it was a week until payday and I'm BROKE!).
Why? 'Cause the virus ate up my drivers. Steadily. Almost like it was a caterpillar chomping through my hard-drive. So the DVD writer I have (such a SPIFFY! thing) didn't work, and every cd I tried to create failed miserably.
I had YEARS worth of artwork and music on my computer. YEARS....I had my entire CD collection entered, IDIOT BOY'S collection entered (all that Eno! Beatles! Yello!), 5 years worth of hunting up flash from every possible source (so much copy-lefting!)...
3 days to copy it over the long way.
grrrrrr.

BUT! I'm up and running once again. Now all I need is my Photoshop back and my Office back. Then....THEN...... MWAAHAHAHAHA...

In other news. Sosu still hasn't moved in. Sic-un dropped the bike while in the middle of a white-out (more or less) on Sunday afternoon (bruised to hell and gone, bike's fine except for the clutch handle. It's rather artistically curved now from the initial impact). Winter hit here in TN in a big way. Came out of the north, so we blame Canada here. Snowed most of Sunday, all of Monday. Icy roads. No, I didn't go to work Monday. I could have walked the full 5 1/2 miles, I suppose, but then I considered....
I'm a sedentary 40 year old who smokes.
Death does not become me. Still, I was going to walk the 1/2 mile or so down the hill to get a ride from one of the supervisors... That fell through.
So I called in. Went back to bed. Stayed warm. Ended up running some laundry and continuing to copy over the fucking files.

I get the feeling if I ever won the lottery, I'd be dangerous.

Alternate dimension (work) is having potluck and gift exchange (no more than $5, $10). I signed up for potato salad. Always a good thing to have/make. And my salad is good. Mako can attest to that, so can Sic-un. And J. And ....has Sosu had my potato salad?....Hmmmmm..... Anyway, I make it like the Mothership does. Great potato salad. And it's made the way Grandmothership did.
I carry on certain traditions with pride, potato salad just happens to be one of them.
That takes place on the 23rd.
I have yet to do any Xmas shopping. I'll have to pay for shipping, I know. But that's the easy thing. And only 1 thing, really....2 things. Grandma's Music in Albuquerque will ship to my Conman... And Amazon will ship to the ET.
Yes, Little Sis. I'm going to call him ET. Get used to it.
Kid likes Transformers. Kid will get Transformers. Optimus Prime. The big one. The one I wanted, you know? But better because manufacturing got a lot more detailed in the intervening 25 years. That one. ET gets it. Princess is getting a gift card. She'll be able to buy whatever she wants. She's a girly girl who understands shopping, I've been led to understand.
Sosu... I know what he's getting, and Sic-un too. Everyone else is going to get cooking things. Really! Things like "Add one beer of your choice to create a delish loaf of beer bread!" and have the ingredients with a loaf pan and instructions.... Or the ingredients and a cookie scoop, "Here's my chocochip recipe. Enjoy!". Things like that.
Not just because I'm poor and want to give to my universe-dwellers but can't really afford to go on a spending spree, but also because I *like* to cook and I want other people to like to cook too, you know?
I've even considered writing a cookbook of sorts.
I would have to measure stringently, methinks. And that's a little too straight-laced when you get down to it.

I have purchased myself something. It was pure feel-good shopping, I admit.  I ended up going to sockdreams and getting a set of socks and their industrial garter belt. Industrial because it's purely very no-nonsense. Rather utilitarian and stern, heavy duty black elastic. The socks are over the knee (which on me should be 1/2 way up the thigh) and a chevron pattern. They're pretty. I still need to wash them so I can wear them. I also want more from the store... Some of their heavier knit items. Warmer socks. Long socks.

And with that, I think I'm headed to a warm bath. My bones are feeling chilly tonight.